Meningitis outbreak: Judge Eddie C. Lovelace's family demands justice

Oct. 7, 2012

Written by

The Tennessean

Eddie Lovelace died on Sept. 17, days after checking in at Vanderbilt University Medical Center with slurred speech, trouble walking and numbness. He was 78.

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Kentucky Circuit Court Judge Eddie C. Lovelace’s death left his family stricken with grief and struggling to understand how a stroke could have killed the man who had been so vital only days beforehand.

Now, his wife of 55 years is demanding justice for her husband, who doled it out from the bench for two decades.

“Somewhere down the line somebody did not do what they should have done,” Joyce Lovelace said, later adding, “I feel like I’m speaking for him, and he can’t speak for himself.”

Eddie Lovelace died on Sept. 17, days after checking in at Vanderbilt University Medical Center with slurred speech, trouble walking and numbness. He was 78.

Lovelace lived in Albany, Ky., about 130 miles northeast of Nashville, but traveled to hospitals here for medical treatment and appointments.

In July and August, Lovelace received three rounds of epidural steroid injections after a March car wreck left him with neck pain, Joyce Lovelace said.

A representative from Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgery Center, where he received the injections, called Joyce Lovelace on Sept. 25, more than a week after he died, to check on “Brother Eddie,” she said. That person did not mention the outbreak.

Someone called again the next day to quiz her about his death and the symptoms that preceded it, which are consistent with symptoms of fungal meningitis.

Still, Joyce Lovelace did not learn about the outbreak that she believes killed her husband until Wednesday, when she read about it online.

“That right there has really floored the whole family,” she said. “I don’t appreciate not being told about it.”